


reopened;

by dollyfish



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Accidents, Angst, Developing Relationship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, also character death I guess but ya know ghost story, ghost story, high school and post-high school, mizoguchi is a saint, oikawa is pretty fucked up in this, the seijou boys are precious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 14:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5209880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyfish/pseuds/dollyfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That one night, Tooru ended up killing a boy.</p><p>No one tells him who; he doesn't wish to know, either. It's easier to forgive himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	reopened;

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know I just love ghosts and suffering

 

_"You would think it was painful. Well, I guess it was. But that's the part where my memories get more blurry, like... a bad frame. It doesn't really matter. Pain."_

_"What happened, Hajime?"_

_Iwaizumi regards him just a moment. "You had a Honda CB 500 R. I remember thinking, they're fucking royalities," he says. "But it suited you."_

 

 

#

 

 

Tooru comes to school on Friday with a migraine, one that involves prickly dizziness all over his body and a huge desire to get it over with.

He walks on a cloud to his classroom door, hands in his pockets, so it's easier to keep them away from his hair. He can't risk to ruffle it, and he doesn't have any wish of spending half an hour in the boys' toilet trying to adjust it. So, his hands stay in the pockets. They also don’t stop trembling.

The room is quiet and he's grateful. He spares a sidelong glance to the guy on his right, seated at the desk in the front row so that his shoulders adhere to the backrest, arms crossed over his chest and– Tooru can't quite recognize the strong features of his face, with that pronounced nose and steel eyes as dark as the streets Tooru is used to walk.

His headache causes him to sigh as he takes his own seat. The entire circumstance is strange and quiet, and perhaps the guy hasn't noticed that Tooru is squaring him off. People usually notice.

"That's Hanamaki's desk," he delcares eventually, chin on his left palm.

"Hm?" The boy, steel eyes carrying exhaustion and an inch of aloofness, turns to him as if waiting for clarification.

Tooru brings out a polite smile of his. "You've probably picked the wrong seat. That one's my friend's."

"He won't come today," is the guy's answer.

Tooru finds himself furrowing his brows, hands itching to scratch the back of his neck, "Is Makki sick?"

With a nod, "I may as well use his seat," the boy says.

Well, definitely _weird_.

Tooru wonders what he's missed while lying down on a hospital's bed, with three beeping machines connected to his arms and nurses and relatives storming around him 'til sundown. Not being the one who easily misses on things has always been his job – people crying, people lying, people hiding feelings – it all comes to him, sooner rather than later.

But he decides to shrug and mumble an apology before focusing on class, getting lost in the rambling of a teacher with really deep wrinkles around his eyes. Not the kind of wrinkles that come laughing a lot, though.

  
#

  
"It's okay, guys, really!" He chuckles and avoids to look at his bleeding palm as he does. He looks calm, and fine. "Go back to practice now. You don't want the vice-captain to scold you, do you?"

Some of the underclassmen turn to look at Matsukawa, who's stepping in their direction with a dead serious frown. Mattsun won't scold anybody. He's too much of an empathetic in his heart to earnestly conform to a role like captaincy, and maybe that's the reason Tooru chose him in the first place. Mattsun is solid, quiet.

"Make sure to show that cut to Mizoguchi-san, he should be around the infirmary," Yahaba advises him, long fingers gripping Tooru's shoulder tightly enough to make him listen. Shigeru's eyes can be piercing when he wants them to be.

Tooru smiles apologetically. "Ah, sweet youth. Worrying for old men such as myself."

"You're seventeen, Oikawa-san."

"Life is short!" Tooru wails, lifting his eyes at the gym's high ceiling, as dramatically as he can manage. And he's a good thespian, he's always been.

Maybe, however, just _maybe_ , he shouldn't have said that, because Matsukawa's glare hits something right between his eyes and in his head some alarms start to ring. Mattsun doesn't have to say anything to make him realize that he's caused discomfort to the team.

(They don't know the whole truth, of course. Just the unavoidable part.)

And he can't even say that almost-dying wasn't entirely his fault because frankly speaking – it was. But it's not like he wants to apologize, not to his teammates.

"Go let that hand be treated," Matsukawa orders, a hand on Yahaba's shoulder, so they look like a Tooru-disapprovement coalition from an outside observer. Or maybe just from Tooru's point of view. "I don't want to clean blood on the floor later."

The group scatters around the gym, eyes on the ground.

Before closing the door behind himself, Tooru jokingly calls "until proven otherwise, I'm still the captain!" He knows that is thanks to his team, Mattsun and Makki first. After the accident – they could have simply chosen someone else.

They didn't and it's all that matters to him.

It's a cloudy Saturday and practice takes place quite early, so a gray tone vaguely wraps around the figure leaning on the gym's wall. Muffled balls resonate two mere feet away but Tooru barely registers them over the blood suddenly rushing to his head.

"What's that," the boy from class asks, candy-white lips moving between slow breaths. A thick scarf covers his neck and part of his left cheek, and Tooru understands immediately what the guy is referring to.

"Huh, I just accidentally reopened a wound– spiking a ball," Tooru informs him, because _why not?_ "Nothing too serious."

The boy arches a brow, and hisses under his breath. "Looks quite serious to me. And you're not dressed for volleyball practice," he notes.

Tooru chuckles. "I was showing the guys a thing or two. That I'm not out of shape."

"Showing off?"

"What can I say," the captain tilts his head to the side, "fake it till you make it."

The other boy trails his gaze on the injuried hand. "You've been unlucky."

A small smile spreads on Tooru's face, then, and he should definitely make his way to the infirmary. "You waitin' for someone?"

There isn't an answer for a little while, and Tooru starts to turn away to leave the guy alone. The quiet shuffle that follows doesn't startle him as it probably should.

"I'm not."

The guy's steps are exceptionally silent but, some moments later, he's right next to Tooru and the two are walking down an hallway, clean and unperturbed because it's not a school day.

"What's your name?" Tooru asks, and it shouldn't feel like a weird question but it does.

They briefly exchange glances. "Iwaizumi." There's a pause, a tensing, as if he's uncomfortable with his own name, but not quite. As if he's waiting for Tooru to react. But there's nothing weird with the name _Iwaizumi_.

"I want a full name," Tooru teases.

The other, as if he's been asked what color his socks are, grunts. "Iwaizumi Hajime? I don't think it matters."

"It matters. And I'm Oikawa Tooru by the way." He notes then that Iwaizumi is a little shorter. "So, Iwa-chan, did you change school recently?"

"I– Yes. And that's a miserable nickname."

"But you're graduating, aren't you?" He's scrutinizing Iwaizumi out of the corner of his eye, and he's good at catching what others don't see. Or choose not to. "We're close to the end of the year. Very close. It's a peculiar decision – Is it even legal?"

"I'm in a very, very peculiar situation," Iwaizumi retorts, giving him a look that means No-More-Snooping, and he's the type that won't let himself be cornered by questions until he has to choke out the truth. What a shame.

When at the end they reach the infirmary, it's the same antiseptic stinking, empty room as ever. The smell is just as unmistakable as hot chocolate's. End up here at least twice a year and you'll know where to find eveything you need; disinfectant in the white locker, wipes on the shelf, next to the tissue box, bandages and patches in the second drawer. Tooru does everything quick and clean.

The infirmary door creaks open as he's wiping away blood from his fingernails. "What happened this time?" Mizoguchi manages to ask in his usual, unwaveringly calm way. He wants to be patient with Tooru, even if sometimes he doesn't like to.

"They had removed the stitches," Tooru asserts, defensive and low. He stretches his hand and his palm tingles pretty much the same way holy water does to the supernatural beings he sees on TV.

Mizoguchi acts like a disappointed parent would for a half hour and then asks if he needs something else.

Tooru thinks, as he glances at the door, where Iwaizumi is likely to be waiting. "Umm, is there anything for migraines?"

"Take only one." The coach hands him a package, that he takes scrunching up his nose. One lime-white pill slips under his sleeve when Mizoguchi isn't looking. Another slips under his tongue, and Tooru gulps it down.

"Thanks, coach." When he steps out, shoulders down, chin high, Iwaizumi is waiting like in a gangster movie with cheap guns and black walls, like he was born for the starring role. His crossed arms show a tan faded with cold months, coming to a stop with the wrapped up sleeves. Tooru says nothing, just looks.

"Is it okay now?" Iwaizumi asks then.

"Worried?"

The boy predictably rolls his eyes. "You're so typical."

"I didn't hear a no." Tooru taps his shoulder with one finger, taps, taps, taps. "You're the weird one, though. D'you live in Miyagi?"

Iwaizumi huffs thoughtfully. (Taking informations from him is a pain, Tooru decides.) "Yea. I used to live in Shiogama."

"Did you? I have friends in Shiogama!" Tooru declares, trying to lighten the mood a little. _For what, even?_ "You're still moving in, right?" Iwaizumi doesn't make a secret of watching him. But well, Tooru will use this to his own advantage. He chuckles and it's easy to act clever. "I came back to school just yesterday, and you were using Makki's desk. So you haven't got your own yet. I'm sure you'll have it on Monday but... that means you got here recently."

"I had to get formalities done in a hurry."

"I imagine." Tooru doesn't hope in a 'because', and frankly he doesn't care much. To find probelms, hitches, he doesn't have to look far away from himself. "I should really head home now."

"You've been hospitalized, haven't you?"

Tooru doesn't flinch, while walking away, and his smile goes honey-sweet. "Who told you?"

"Someone mentioned it." Iwaizumi is lying. It's not like it's visible, really; it's in his eyebrows and his neck, in the curve of the sound, the way he wants to unfold his arms but keeps them over his chest. His face is a blank wall. "I've just heard of it anyways. But you're okay now."

Tooru doesn't know if that's supposed to be a question when it crosses him like a bullet. "Do you want to know what happened?"

"No."

"Good. Because you probably won't hear it from my mouth."

That's the most sincere answer he can give, and it's okay that they have their own secrets.

  
#

  
On Monday, Hanamaki is back on his chair.

Rain is a drum outside of the window, poorly in sync with Tooru's pencil and the dull sound it makes hitting the desk. He stops. He puts down the pencil.

Iwaizumi is sitting in the back row now, behind boys and girls whit plugged ears, chin on his closed fist. He has knuckles that are the only outlined thing, the rest is all blurred, and he wants to touch them – so bad. Iwaizumi's smoky eyes wander to him in an instant, offer an expression open like a window, but so hollow it's impossible to read the dark hotchpoch between the lines. Tooru turns away.

He still wants to look.

He still wants to glance at the shape of the arm, the curve of the neck, because there's something insignificantly wrong with the spectrum, the signs, the

eyes that catch him peeking over his shoulder and one second is _not_ enough but Tooru straightens his spine, defeated.

He sees the pencil on his desk. He grabs it and tries to mock the rain.

  
#

  
"How's your hand?"

Yahaba looks good in March. And few manage to look good during goodbyes, not the ones that truly count. But Yahaba somehow makes it, and talks like this isn't one of them, like Oikawa Tooru is going to be the patch on every hole they have, like always.

"Hmmm, fine," Tooru says. Maybe he should do something more than say things at this point.

"You liar. It's a pain in the ass, just admit it." And Shigeru laughs.

"Fuckin' old men" Kyoutani gruffly adds, because he's nothing other than a big, soft, gruff dog.

Watari sighs, very dramatically, staring at the sunset, and Tooru feels like his attitude is being made fun of, "Who will we worry for?"

The former captain ruffles Yahaba's hair, and feels tired for the umpteenth time today, but it's not like he can show that. "Won't you miss my cute beauty? It's been the strenght of the team for so long. Ungrateful brats."

Watari has the guts to let a snicker spill out. Tooru is outraged.

Mastukawa feels the need to intervene in the conversation and from that moment --

Tooru stops breathing.

It's not quite apnea, but plenty similar to it and instead of water, there's this huge expanding mental void. Matsukawa is still talking but Watari giggles, beaming as she does. Watari is an only child and it shows. Tooru is rather evidently looking up for no evident reason because no one does the same. A fucking black hole in his head. No thoughts about why Iwaizumi is on the roof, alone, and staring down, right at them.

His heartbeats grow fast and light like his pace, as he burns the steps to the roof. And then the dying sun hits him.

Tooru breathes, and by the time he's next to Iwaizumi there's a chewing-gum under his shoe and Iwaizumi has not once looked at him. It's nice, to look together at something that is not each other. It feels like sharing a moment.

Iwaizumi does seem a little like one that does moments. "Congratulations," he says, voice all husky but clear like the caramel sky. It's a painfully terse evening.

"Yeah," Tooru replies, nods, and looks to the side. Not Iwaizumi's side. "Umm. It's been a great month. I mean, you've been disturbingly silent in class and you're like a goddamn ghost all the time, but, like, congrats to you too. Yohoo! We're officially graduates!" If he still had his intellectual hat he would throw it in the air right now. But he still wants the show, so he grabs Iwaizumi's hat instead.

"Hey!" Hair all spiky, the other boy leans away from the balaustrade and jumps, with no effort on the knees. The hat lands in his tanned hands.

Tooru still wants to touch them, and see if they're as warm as they seem. With the exuse to catch the hat again, he does.

They're neither warm nor wintry cold. To Tooru, they resemble a little the seaside wind, when it's dry and it kills your wounds and comes from the middle of nowhere. A bastard, but a fascinating one, a free one. Iwaizumi has the hands of either a fighter or a giver.

"Don't touch my hat."

"Someone here is protective," Tooru chants, the picture of condescension, "uhh, Iwa-chan, I'd never date your daughter."

Distrust passes over Iwaizumi's face. He opens his mouth, then pauses. "Of course not! I'd never agree to that, asshole."

"No violence! I'm a pacifist! And my face is too cute to be ruined by a brute."

"Screw you," the boy retorts, turning back to the balaustrade with the hat still firm in his grasp, so those knuckles trace the light of mountains unfairly unnoticed by artists.

It's good sometimes to see something for the first time either on a tired evening, heavy-eyed, or at the edge of ecstasy, and fall deep and hard in love for three minutes. (Tooru, at least, likes it.)

He just wants Iwaizumi to be there when the sun goes down, so that this goodbye can last a little while.

  
#

  
A lot of people come to say goodbye to the good kid next door. It happens in movies, it's a given.

It doesn't happen to Oikawa Tooru, a kid he is no more, a _kid_ doesn't leave for college, but the old neighbor pays him a visit. She's the granny that Tooru once had and once lost and, not to be mean, a much cooler one at that. Granny strokes his bangs away from his forehead, fingertips rough and wrinkled, hands and grumpiness that one day he will miss a teeny tiny bit for sure. She looks a little like Tobio, and that's why he smiles at her. He will never forget Tobio, so he will never forget her. "So your parents have finally kicked you out, hm?" she mutters, throat ragged from tobacco use.

"How could they! I'm a lovely child," Tooru winks at her.

She snorts, and if she had a stick, now would be the time to wag it in the air. "Don't think I've forgotten all those times your volleyball ended up on my plants, Tooru! Don't you dare think that."

Oh, Tooru wouldn't.

"And that boy you've been ranting 'bout?" she asks.

"Same college, different faculties."

"I swear, if you get into trouble–"

"Granny!"

"–I am, personally, going to find you." She is serious, she is always serious. Aside from when she's more sarcastic than Makki. Her finger hangs dangerously close to Tooru's nose. "That's worth double if you manage to hurt yourself... Or others," the woman concludes, and her finger, her own blue eyes, are shaken by something unreadlable.

Tooru's head is filled with cotton, and clearness, and he knows what he has to answer. It doesn't mean it's a lie. "No more trouble of that kind. I promise."

Granny truly cares; he doesn't have to be reminded, but he appreciates it. "I'll hold you to that," her voice isn't significantly more than a grumble, "but have fun, boy. And come back for holidays."

And now she is winking at him, turning around, and leaving him on his doorsteps. Thinking.

  
#

  
When Tooru finishes unpacking, his hands ache a little. He turns around with a proud smile, just to see Iwaizumi leaning on the doorframe and drifting his eyes from one part of the room to the other.

"How rich is your family, exactly?"

Tooru arches an eyebrow. "Exuse me? Is that jealousy what I'm hearing? Oh, dear..."

"Shut that trap. May as well move in a mansion, don't you think?"

"This is a campus dorm, Iwa-chan," Tooru insists, eyes going wide in an expression of fake bewilderment as his hands fly up to point out of the window. "Maybe I'm in possession of a slightly larger bed than other students, yeah. I suggest you to get over it, you'll get yourself wrinkles."

He feels, at the pit of his stomach, the growing need to ask where Iwaizumi is staying at, but he shuts it out of his system in less than ten seconds. The look in Iwaizumi's eyes tells that he knows to what extent Tooru is, regrettably, curious by nature.

Iwaizumi huffs heavily, ducking his head without an answer to any of the questions Tooru is this close to shouting, choking out. He can't properly register that it's been months since Iwaizumi showed up and has been playing hide and seek, like a murder suspect, hiding proofs of the unknown misdeed. Thinking this way can thrill Tooru to no end, and this is dangerous, childish, but better than the other option.

 

#

 

 **me:** _and btw!!! iwa-chan says hi to the team_

 **yahaba:** _iwachan?_

 **me:** _yeayea, the grumpy transfer student in my class last year!!!! dont tell me u dont remember him_

 **yahaba:** _I didn't notice him_

 **me:** _YOU'RE GETTING OLD TOO HAHA!_

 **yahaba:** _... if you say so_

  
#

They're four months into time-sucking college classes and sleep-less schedules, that Tooru finds himself loving, and they've met up at Tooru's places a total of five times. The dorm feels full when Iwaizumi is in there with him, pretending to read the books that Tooru has brought from Miyagi.

He's been staring at page 28 of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ for a lot of time now. Now, Tooru doesn't know exactly what to make of it.

"Are you tired, Iwa-chan?" he asks warily.

Iwaizumi shows absolutely no reaction. But his eyes look more sunken than usual, his cheeks fainter. He answers, "Sometimes," and nothing feels right but at the same time, nothing is out of place.

Tooru closes his textbook and bends forward to look at the boy's face. "You're not made of steel any more than me, you know?"

Iwaizumi shoots him a strange look.

"I mean that you're always complaining about me, me, me. _Tooru, stop practicing_ this and _Tooru go to sleep that_. But do _you_ listen to your own words?"

There are many different facets of wordless and Iwaizumi is the most cold, faraway and utterly frightening of all. Tooru thinks for half a second that he's going to give a belated reply. Maybe a little biting, who would Hajime be without his harmless sharpness? He's wrong, because Iwaizumi stands up and leaves.

  
#

  
Tooru wakes up hearing ragged, uneven, heavy breathing. The hurt inside his chest doesn't equal anything he's ever felt, doesn't even _compare_. Physical pain is just the peak, and he wishes he woke up crying.

Through dry eyes, he sees an objectless shadow stain the wall, petrified. There's no streetlights breaking in, nothing remotely bright enough, but there's that shadow and there's stink of narcotics. And company for Tooru.

His legs instantly move and kick out of bed, as his hand finds the switch near the bedside table and cheap lights wash over the whole room. Tooru doesn't close his eyes.

They don't catch anything except the flat wall staring right back at him. Tooru's chest still hurts. His eyes too. But there's nothing. Not a hand on his heart. Not a ghost beside his soul. Not a breath into his ear. See? Nothing.

Nothing.

The alarm tells him that he's slept less than four hours. He's a little feverish, he believes.

  
#

  
_"Will I see you again, Hajime?"_

He's been wondering for the past three weeks but there's still no sign. He went to some some of Iwaizumi's classes, and waited. He sat alone in the cafeteria, the other day. People wonder about him too, since he's not one who goes unnoticed.

Iwaizumi will have to show up.

Meanwhile, Tooru plays around with towels and papers and wears skinnier jeans than usual. No sign at the horizon, not yet. But if Iwaizumi is sound and alive, he's around here for sure.

So why doesn't he show up?

Tooru gets good notes and passes exams and smiles a lot, even when he feels worry starting to tickle his skin. One month passes, and Tooru, a college boy, goes out drinking with friends.

One month, and Iwaizumi shows up.

It doesn't go how Tooru expected. He gets a text first. From an unknown number, but Tooru knows it's him.

 **inbox (1):** _meet me on the roof of your building._

It means _now_ , it means _I'm here_ , it means many things and none. It means that Iwaizumi doesn't want him to prepare himself, to think for too long about what they're going to say, when they see each other. Tooru pulls off his blue sweater, then pulls it on again. Blue has always suited him.

The climb doesn't burn with anticipation; instead, Tooru feels that same black hole he knows well from _matches and cheering crowds and shouting peers and sweat, green invincible eyes drifting to him in the middle of it all, rage; prizes, practice, time, bruises, **bruises, bruises**_ , stretching in his stomach. He's going to scream into the wind, if Iwaizumi will let him. But of course he will.

He opens the heavy door and the boy is there. He looks more tired than last time, which Tooru pretends to ignore. They stand together by the balaustrade without saying a word, and it almost, almost feels like this is their own small peace.

Then, voice husky and fresh, as daylight's fading out, Iwaizumi starts talking. "Every day that passes, I remember less and less."

Tooru tries to avert his eyes from him, and fails. "Of what?"

"You would think it was painful. Well, I guess it was. But that's the part where my memories get more blurry, like... a bad frame. It doesn't really matter. Pain."

"What happened, Hajime?"

Iwaizumi regards him just a moment. "You had a Honda CB 500 R. I remember thinking, they're fucking royalities," he says. "But it suited you."

Tooru's body goes still, as if frozen. He doesn't want to think back to that. It's too cruel to say _it suited you_ ; the motorbike was thrown away in the blink of an eye. Tooru doesn't regret doing so.

"There's not much before that. But suddenly, I was there, near the ambulance. And I watched." Iwaizumi passes one hand over his mouth, his chin, hesitating. "It was very dark and there were eight thousand red and blue lights, all over the place. I saw the police and the concrete. I saw your Honda disregarded there; I knew what had happened without needing to. Strange, isn't it?"

Tooru doesn't dare to speak.

"There was only one ambulance. I didn't go inside. I saw people pushing and yelling and oxygen masks. Then I wasn't there anymore, but I knew where I was. I just knew."

"Is this a joke?" Tooru asks, voice ragged in fear of both answers.

"When I found myself again, and I'm sparing you the rest, I walked. I walked until I found you. You know, I hated you so much," Iwaizumi's voice wavers slightly, but otherwise he sounds like he's telling someone else's story, "so much that my fists wouldn't stay still. I hated you until I understood that you couldn't hear my cries because you were in a fucking _coma_ , you wouldn't wake up for weeks."

Tooru feels pure rage moving him. He grips Iwaiumi's shoulder, tight as a viper's bite, and his throat closes around itself. He wants to meet his eyes and tell him that he's aware of how unworthy of a person he is, he's aware of the fact that you shouldn't drive while high, he's aware of the fact that his stupidity costed someone's life, that night.

But truth is, Tooru doesn't even know that someone's name.

He can't bring himself to whisper a single beg; _stop._

Iwaizumi doesn't look at him gravely. His expression is patient, like an old mountain shadowing a small river from the violent Sun. He could be shining with a smile and Tooru wouldn't be taken aback. "I hated you for less than ten heartbeats."

Breath comes out deep and uneven from Tooru's lungs. He can't have a hysterics here.

"In the days that followed, I kept thinking about why I didn't want you dead. I couldn't want you dead. And then, you woke up, stood up, and asked about your parents and your volleyball team. And when you woke up I didn't feel despair. All I saw was... A human being coming back to a life that belongs to him." Iwaizumi fills the air with words that, to Tooru, have less and less of a meaning.

Toou's head spins hopelessly. If he thinks, his mind ends up drowining in dark places, haunted by remorse and unconsciousness. "Hajime, if you don't stop, I'm going to push you off the roof." He doesn't know if he means it as a joke. Perhaps yes.

Iwaizumi doesn't take it as one. As Tooru builds distance between them, the other opens his arms, as if to hold the whole world; he leans back on the balaustrade, features hard, hair golden at the edges. The dying sun bleeds on his right shoulder. "Okay," he says. A simple "okay."

Tooru hates him for it. Plentiful, raging emotions flare up in his entire body, move his arms, and they go up, muscles tightening as they make contact with Iwaizumi's chest. His chest isn't alive; it doesn't matter. Tooru's hands come to rest there.

Wide open and still.

If he pushes a little harder, with some more stenght, Iwaizumi will fall. Yet, neither of them moves, and heartbeats fly away like hours and hours.

"Tell me only one thing," Iwaiumi asks, more quietly than he's ever spoken. He seems to know by heart every flaw of his face, of his soul, with those eyes greener than mountains. "Why did you need it?"

"The drinks..." Tooru trails out, knowing that any answer isn't enough. Will never be enough.

"No, not those. I understand those. Tooru, why did you need the speed?"

It crosses time as barely more than a honest, caring question, and with that, Oikawa Tooru splits in two. His tears fight to flow faster. Tooru lets them. He sobs and swallows thickly, then sobs again. He holds on to Iwaizumi, tight, then tighter, with hands clenched, forgotten on Iwaizumi's shirt, which is gettind damp with every second that passes as Tooru is embraced by Iwaizumi's arms.

To run away. He's sure, Iwaizumi understands.

"I'm so sorry," Tooru hopes the words don't come out too much choked.

"Okay," Iwaizumi soothes, as he gently brushes Tooru's hair back.

Sunlight hurts Tooru's eyes a little, so he shuts them and leans back slightly. He feels a thumb coming to wipe his cheek, and this he can't be imagining. "I'm sorry," he repeats.

Iwaizumi's mouth closes over his. It's just a small push, the time of a thieved breath. Exactly like he stole it, Iwaizumi is the one to pull away.

Tooru is staring back at him, eyes far from wide, as if the more he lets them open up for Iwaizumi, the more emotion will spill out. He likes to keep his feelings close, but ne needs to hold Iwaizumi closer. How stupid. It's the stupidest thought he's ever had.

When Iwaizumi says "Let's go inside, Tooru," all he does is tear up, again.

  
#

  
Water whispers while it falls in the basin, stirred by Iwaizumi's quiet hands, soaking a towel thoroughly. Tooru plays (he doesn't _fidget_ , ever) with the hem of Iwaizumi's sweater while the trails that tears have angrily left behind are washed away. He closes his eyes, feels soft fabric under his fingers and brushing his cheeks.

They don't talk in the bathroom.

Tooru feels like a storm did, after all, run through him, and now there's only the dry land, burned to the core and messed up by floods. The air seems dead, peppery where Hajime gives away the impression of breathing. He lies onto his bed, tired as if all his fibers have been torn apart and haphazard tangled back together. Iwaizumi sits beside him on the mattress, arms folded over his chest.

"Iwa-chan," Tooru calls out, not sure if his voice really sounds that weary.

"Hm?"

"They don't see you, do they?"

"No. Just you."

"And no one can touch you but me, right?"

"Yea."

Tooru's mouth tastes like sand. "A lot makes sense now, I guess."

"Won't you ask why?"

"I already know why. You're haunting me."

"That's..." Iwaizumi's hand twitches. After a moment, it comes to rest on Tooru's temple, trailing down its outline. "That's an obsolete explanation." When Tooru does nothing but look at him, Iwaizumi continues. "At first, it was my confusion to keep me here. Then, anger. But at  the end, I could feel no hate. It wasn't it."

"Then what?"

Iwaizumi's thumb ghosts over the corner of Tooru's eye, "You're such an ugly crier." His eternally husky voice is a murmur in the faint light of the bedside lamp. He moves to take Tooru's phone from the small table. He unlocks it and seconds pass silently. Then, he hands the phone over.

"What are you doing?" Tooru asks. The phone is burning-hot in his faint grip.

"Call Matsukawa," Iwaizumi commands.

Tooru is too tired for this. He does so. When Mattsun picks up, he glances at Iwaizumi.

"Ask him to come over tomorrow."

"Hi Mattusn! Yeah, um, I'm well, I..." Tooru's mouth doesn't quite wrap around the words. "... I'm not."

_"Another sport injury?"_

"No. No, it's... It's something different."

_"... Okay. We'll catch a train tomorrow morning. Do you feel like going to class?"_

"I don't know."

 _"Wanna talk 'bout it?"_ The line goes still with the silence of Matsukawa's yawn.

"No," Tooru denies hurriedly. "Go back to your beauty sleep. You need it."

_"Ass. Makki is still up studying, ya know."_

"See you tomorrow."

The call buzzes to an end. Tooru presses the phone over his lips, chewing on an unlucky fingernail. Iwaizumi is watching him closely, like one looks at a painting.

Tooru has to ask. "What happens now?"

The room plunges into a silence. Neither of them moves, but Tooru's mind reels painfully around an answer that doesn't come. It occurs to him that he hasn't dined, but he forgets it. It's almost summer, and the sun goes down later every night, but the weight under his eyes doesn't make him want to close them.

Iwaizumi lowers himself and pins Tooru at the pillow with his deceptive breath. There's pity in his eyes, visible as the dark dots among the green, before he comes all the way down to surrender the kiss they both were seeking. It lasts less than the first. This time, Tooru thinks: nothing tastes quite like him.

It doesn't hurt, but doesn't give comfort either.

"You will be okay." Iwaizumi says it like he's sure of it. It's not what Tooru wants to hear; his fingers slip over the arc of Iwaizumi's shoulders. _Faith._

"You won't," he lets out in a whisper, soft and hoarse in equal parts, like he's teared in two.

Iwaizumi can do nothing but wrap his arms around him, without any more promises. They both know what they would be. Lies.

Tooru's chest screams the same words over and over, a chant of _I'm sorryI'm sorry **I'M SORRY!**_. But he's always himself, or so he wants to believe. "Will you go away?"

"By tomorrow."

"I still need you."

A rough finger lands softly on Tooru's withered and vain lips, tracing a pattern from the upper to the pale skin under the mouth. Tooru believies they will kiss again. They don't. "All there was to say has been said."

Every part of him knows that every part of Iwaizumi isn't his to keep. The strong shoulders he's holding- They are not real. They are meant to fade away. Tooru knows he should say nothing and wait, sleep, until all around him is just cold air and guilt. But he's always himself, and selfishness wins. "That's not true at all! You have to tell me a lot of things yet. You have. You... What you felt that night, and all the hateful things you shouted at me, _I want to know_ , how many people you left behind, people I have to talk with, and what you did while I was in a coma, and what you wanted to do after." _How many people do I have to apologize to? Brothers, sisters, friends?_ He could go on for hours, like a broken, depressing record.

Iwaizumi's expression doesn't change much. "I am dead, Oikawa." It's all he says. Tooru is this close to cutting his chest open and let it all out; it would be painful, unfair, dark and probably letal. But then Iwaizumi continues, quieter than he's ever been. "But I have already forgiven you."

Tooru stares at Iwaizumi's face. He's tired; they both are. "I believe you."

"Good." Iwaizumi caresses his hair, still so close to him he could feel the other's magnetic body, if only it had any concreteness. They can still touch, and that's more than Tooru would've guessed, if you asked, before all this.

Tooru, now, can only drink him in, fresh and wild and forever eighteen.

"When I'm gone, you can't pretend this was a dream."

"I wouldn't, Hajime."

_"Iwaizumi Hajime? I don't think it matters."_

_"It matters."_

"Swear you won't cry anymore, not about me." Iwaizumi is just a reassuring precence next to him, but thanks to this, Tooru can collect enough voice to speak;

"I'll miss you."

Iwaizumi stops there, only brushes his hair, waiting for him to fall asleep, and Tooru doesn't know if it's just as hard for him, this goodbye. He falls in love with Iwaizumi's warmth enclosing him, one last time, before his mind fades into sleep.

Tooru's lips spell _I'll miss you, my whole life_ without even needing to move.

 

 

  
The morning rays draw wonders on Tooru's skin, gentle and desolatingly bright. He opens his eyes and their brown trebles, ever so slightly, when they see. When he wakes up, alone, it all feels like a dream where he's never hurt anyone.

When he wakes up, he's not quite himself anymore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading.  
> kudos/comments are always appreciated. and yes this is a series, we'll figure out what comes next!
> 
> also you're always welcome on my [tumblr](http://pharadoxly.tumblr.com/) and [writing blog](http://amaytea.tumblr.com/) (if you wanna send a request!)


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